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Film At Sundance Festival Shows Its Glorious Colors
01/31/2006
(Sundance Film Festival shines spotlight on U.S. and world independent filmmaking)
By Michael J. Bandler
Washington File Staff Writer
On a recent frigid Friday evening in a modest Utah ski town, an anticipatory audience filled one of the nine local movie theaters for the unveiling of a movie that was not on the radar of Hollywood, the tabloids, the blogs or any of the outlets that keep track of what is happening, popularly speaking, in American film.
Within less than two hours, the lights came on, and an extended round of applause ensued, followed by intensive negotiations among representatives of the major Hollywood studios.
As dawn broke in Park City, Utah, on Saturday, January 21, after a sleepless night for many, Little Miss Sunshine -- an independent film that had no major actors, a pair of first-time directors, a tortuous production and financing history and no exposure to the lucrative foreign film market -- had become the first of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival roster to hope for a life. Fox Searchlight, a division of the major Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox, won the night’s bidding war and purchased the film for U.S. and worldwide distribution for more than $10 million. The movie, a road comedy about a family's quest for glory at a beauty pageant for grade-schoolers, had itself hit the road to glory.
To those at home and abroad who toil in every aspect of filmmaking and film production and distribution -- from struggling actors and directors to financiers and publicists and critics -- Sundance represents a different path. Each January, after an extensive evaluation process, the festival unveils more than 100 movies -- features, shorts and documentaries -- from the United States and abroad. The hope, for the festival and for the individual filmmaker, is that thanks to the Sundance spotlight, some of the films will find the widest possible audience. The 2006 festival is being held January 19-29.
For nearly a century, America's movie industry has been identified by the world as Hollywood, the central Los Angeles venue where the major studios -- Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and the others -- first saw the light of day.
The products of these dream factories, with multimillion-dollar budgets, are the stuff of American film as mass audiences around the world have known it -- the action adventures, the special effects, the larger-than-life actors who dominate the epics. But that is only part of the story.
Over the past two decades, moviegoers from Buenos Aires to Cape Town, from Istanbul to Tokyo have become aware that there is an edgier and grittier, less polished and less glamorous component of film that -- to a large extent -- presents an honest and unadorned, and sometimes controversial, slice of life in the United States and in the world.
Known colloquially by the catchall phrase "independent filmmaking," it comes to the fore primarily at festivals such as Sundance. With the soaring Hollywood budgets has come a diminution of risk-taking in the industry. Independent filmmaking, with products made for as little as tens of thousands of dollars, tackles familiar subjects from somewhat unfamiliar perspectives, in unusual settings or situations.
It is often forgotten that the festival -- designed originally as paralleling mainstream moviemaking -- is only part of the concept of the Sundance Institute, founded by actor-director Robert Redford in 1985. Apart from his environmental concerns, which partially fueled the decision to purchase a tract of land in the canyons of Utah, Redford envisioned creating "a dynamic and significant experience for people, their voices, and ideas."
As a result, in addition to its concentration on all aspects of feature and documentary filmmaking, Sundance has components on music composition and theater arts. Recently, it expanded its theater program overseas, sponsoring a three-day workshop in Poland that centered on I Am My Own Wife, a play developed at Sundance that went on to win the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
But moviemaking is what seizes the world's attention and budding filmmakers’ imagination and vision.
Examples of what Sundance can achieve abound. To take just two:
In January 2005, audiences at Sundance saw Murderball unfold, and awarded it their trophy for best documentary at the festival. It focused on rugby as played by a tough, competitive group of paraplegic athletes, tracing their journey from local gyms in the American heartland to the Paralympics in Athens, Greece. As it has been described, it's "a film about standing up, even after your spirit -- and your spine -- has been crushed." Popular in American movie theaters, it now is available as a digital versatile disc.
In January 2006, a young Peruvian filmmaker, Claudia Llosa, came to Sundance with Madeinusa, a portrait of a 14-year-old Indian girl living in an isolated mountain village and her encounter with a big-city geologist. In working to depict the culture clash between modernity and urban life with a rural religiosity, Llosa developed her script at the Sundance Screenwriters' Lab. Eventually, she received an enviable selection for inclusion in the 2006 event.
"I want to show my culture," Llosa said during a festival week conversation, reflecting, no doubt, the mindset of other filmmakers from abroad. "I need to write about my country. There are so many stories to talk about, so many things to say. I feel a responsibility to make these types of connections."
Madeinusa was one of 16 feature films from five continents entered in the "world cinema competition: dramatic" category. Another 16 comprised the roster in "world cinema competition: documentary."
As the years have progressed, Sundance's reputation has led to a distinct credibility within the movie industry as a whole -- which is why the "majors" come to Park City to see, to mull over and to bid on distribution rights.
As a result, a newer fringe film festival in Park City in January -- Slamdance -- lately has gained its own attention and status. One of its 2005 prize winners, Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary about New York City elementary school children learning the rudiments of dancing before entering an annual citywide competition, received national and international distribution.
All of this ferment is very healthy, principally for artists and, ultimately, for audiences. The more diverse the picture, the more heterogeneous the themes and subjects, the more broadening it can be toward enabling people around the globe to understand their common humanity.
(Additional information (http://festival.sundance.org/2006/) is available on the Sundance Film Festival 2006 Web site.)